


Smoke and Mirrors

by thetreesgrowodd



Category: Ghostbusters (Movies)
Genre: Creepypasta, Gen, POV First Person, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-22
Updated: 2011-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:44:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetreesgrowodd/pseuds/thetreesgrowodd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rookie Ghostbuster thinks the job is a scam. He learns the truth the hard way. Written in creepypasta style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke and Mirrors

I started smoking when I was in my late teens and was spending a lot of time with smokers. Then, just like everybody says, I couldn't stop.

My boss, Ray Stantz gave me my first cigarette. It was on that same day that I finally realized he was a brilliant man and not a crackpot.

I was working full time because I'd dropped out of college. I'd hated it. Not the classes and homework, at least not directly. Just everything else. I hadn't made friends there and as time passed — a week, a month, a semester — that fact became more and more pathetic until I couldn't live with it. I wasn't hated or bullied by the other students, just somehow invisible.

It was surprising, then, when my roommate told me about a job opening that he thought I might be cut out for. Maybe he just wanted to get rid of me. I followed up on it and got hired. Working gave me an excuse — if a flimsy one — to take a semester off. I could give myself some time to decide if I wanted to go back to college or not. That was how I justified it.

I got hired by this weird little group. I'm not sure why — I had no particular skills other than being sturdy enough to carry their equipment. Maybe they could tell I'd keep my mouth shut about whatever they were doing.

As for what they did — they were self-styled 'Paranormal Investigators' before that phrase was trendy. Hell, before anybody had even heard that phrase. They left me outside when they went into places to do 'paranormal investigations and eliminations.' I didn't care. I thought it was a huge scam, but if these guys were slick enough to convince people to give up their money and I got a cut of it, that was fine with me.

Things went like this for months. I cleaned up after them and carried their stuff, sometimes manned the phones when there was no one else. Sometimes when we were waiting around for jobs to come in, I used to escape to the roof to listen to my Walkman and watch the world go by and worry about my life.

Then one day they came back from a 'bust' without Spengler. He was in the hospital having a compound fracture set. They said a demon had thrown him down a staircase. I interpreted that as 'tripped over his own feet because he was walking around staring at a meter again.' They said they had temporarily retreated and were regrouping before rushing back, because apparently the bust was urgent. Like major catastrophe urgent. This client must have a lot of money for them to make such a big production of things, I thought.

I could tell they didn't want to, but they had me go back with them. Zeddemore suited me up, strapped a pack on me. Venkman gave me a quick pep talk and a slap to the face. Stantz spouted off a long list of 'entities' we might encounter, then physically tethered me to himself with a length of rope.

And I went into that building with them.

They weren't con men after all.

I wish I could say it was just a haunted house. That would have been better. Easier to understand, easier to explain. Easier to forget.

I'll just say that when it was over, I no longer doubted the story about Spengler's injury. I believed everything they'd told me, every claim their business made, the validity of every bust I'd seen them go on. These crazy scientist/action heroes were saving the fucking world, possibly daily, and absolutely _earned_ every cent they got paid.

After that 'bust' we all stood around outside what was left of that building. They smoked like it was a ritual. I sat on the ground, stunned, and stared at the full traps, their blinking lights hypnotic. My skin still crawled.

I barely noticed Stantz waving a PKE meter around, until he knelt down next to me. He gave me an appraising, almost pitying look, then forced a cigarette in my hand and held out a lighter. "Smoke that, son. You breathed some bad air in there."

"What?"

"Some of those," he gestured at the traps, "are in your lungs. Class two vaporous paranormal parasites. They're the little tiny ones we haven't figured out how to trap yet."

Zeddemore looked over at me and flicked his cigarette ash to the side. "Just be glad it wasn't the gastrointestinal ghasts. Take it from me."

Even in my shocked state, my distrustful, stubborn nature — the one that had kept me friendless in spite of myself — balked. They had to be joking.

I looked at the cigarette. "Oh, and this will kill them?"

"Nothing kills them, but regular doses of smoke feed them and keep 'em happy in your lungs," Stantz told me. "It keeps them from migrating north." He tapped his head.


End file.
